Posts with tag Oliver Stone
Posted Oct 14th 2008 4:02PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Lionsgate Films, Box Office
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It's the question of the week. Lionsgate took a considerable risk in snapping up Oliver Stone's rushed-to-production
W. with the plan of releasing it just a couple weeks before the election, when the country -- and
especially the film's target audience -- has already been living and breathing presidential politics for months. On the other hand, Lionsgate's marketing effort has been very solid, giving the jokes and conventional wisdom (Bush as a beer-guzzling frat boy, etc.) plenty of play while successfully pitching it as a serious historical saga. I think they've succeeded in making people curious, which is the best they could have hoped for. And the positive buzz that has started to surround the film in the last week or so will only help.
So let's talk turkey. How much money will
W., opening on 2,000 screens with
Max Payne as its main competition, make this weekend? There's no real precedent for this, so the prediction is very difficult. Stone's
World Trade Center managed to open to $18 million despite the subject matter, though it had 1,000 more screens to work with. I could be way off, but I still think this release is precarious enough that $15 million would be a big victory, and $10 million not a disappointment. I suspect the reality will be somewhere between those two numbers.
What do you think? Do people want to see this? Will they actually be able to bring themselves to go?
Posted Oct 9th 2008 9:03AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Lionsgate Films, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand
Oliver Stone's
W. has screened for the more important among us, and I am pleasantly surprised to report that people are not openly laughing at it. Some seem downright impressed. Here, for example is David Poland on
The Hot Blog:
"[Josh] Brolin should be nominated for the Oscar. We'll see whether the crowd around Best Actor is too big for him to crack, but it is a letter perfect performance that looks much, much easier than most critics and audiences, I think, will understand . . . . The only downside is that the movie doesn't offer the massive supporting cast a lot of big awards-style moments. They are just really, really good. And that really should be enough."
Variety's
Todd McCarthy is a bit more mixed than Poland, but concedes that
W. "offers a clear and plausible take on the current chief executive's psychological makeup and, considering Stone's reputation and Bush's vast unpopularity, a relatively even-handed, restrained treatment of recent politics." And
Kirk Honeycutt over at
The Hollywood Reporter says that though the film is more bold than it is good, "Stone goes out of his way to give Bush a fair hearing."
Over the summer, I
guffawed at the notion that Stone was going to be fair and sympathetic to Bush in
W., but it looks like I may be eating those words before too long. Apparently the problem people are having with the film isn't its politics but its lack of formal audacity, which is the opposite what I expected to hear. But it's certainly good to learn that Stone at least attempts a serious treatment of the subject -- those
script pages that
Slate "leaked" a while back could have fooled me.
Posted Sep 24th 2008 10:32AM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Fandom, Movie Marketing, Images
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More photos from Oliver Stone's upcoming George W. Bush satire,
W., have arrived online via
USA Today, and a good amount of them show what it looked like behind the scenes on one of this fall's most talked-about films. Above you get a pretty good look at Stone going over notes with Thandie Newton (Condoleeza Rice), Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld), Bruce McGill (George Tenet), Josh Brolin (George W. Bush), Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell) and Richard Dreyfuss (Dick Cheney). Also featured in this selection of images is James Cromwell as President George H.W. Bush.
Apparently the film opens with Bush Jr. standing in the middle of a baseball field, listening to the roar of the crowd as an announcer calls forth the 43rd president of the United States. However, the camera pans back to reveal no one there but Bush. What's up with what? Stone notes, "We all have retreat fantasies. He did have the express desire to be baseball commissioner, and I think some people, historically, would say if he had become baseball commissioner, it would have saved us a lot of problems."
As far as the target audience for
W. goes, Stone adds, "I'm not interested in that radical 15% that hate Bush or the 15 to 20% who love Bush. That's not our audience. Those people probably won't come. I'm interested in that 60% in the American middle who at least have a little more open mind."
Will you be seeing Oliver Stone's
W. when it hits theaters on October 17? Check out two new photos of Bush and Bush Jr. below, then head to
USA Today for the rest.
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Posted Aug 29th 2008 5:33PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Politics, Trailers and Clips
There are girls swinging on a red swingset and piles of potluck food piled high on the tables, all nestled into a wood-fence-lined back yard. According to Oliver Stone's
W., this is how George W. Bush met Laura Welch -- the girl who says: "I read. I smoke. I admire." No wonder the two ended up together!
The above is a clip about their meeting, which has popped up over at CNN. Now I know that the big question surrounding this film is
whether people will go to see it, or ignore it, kind of like the proliferation of Iraq war films out there. I have to say, if
W. tanks when it hits screens on October 17, it would be a waste. The film looks entertaining, it has a distinct life to it, and it would be a shame to miss how the killer cast takes on their roles -- Brolin, Banks, Cromwell, Burstyn, Newton, Dreyfuss, Wright, Glenn, Gruffudd, and Bradford.
Posted Aug 5th 2008 12:33PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Box Office, Fandom, Distribution, Politics, Polls
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Each day seems to bring us yet another piece of promotional marketing for Oliver Stone's Bush flick
, W. Not long after
Moviefone debuted the trailer,
AICN now has a teaser poster and what you see above is one of two newly-released images from the film. They're definitely pimping it, trying to get folks interested in a movie about the life and times of George W. Bush even though many of us are tired of the man, the jokes, the legend -- all of it. We've spent 8 years with this dude ... can't we just shake his hand, thank him for a job done and move on?
Anyway
, W (which feels like it was shot and edited in three weeks in order to make a pre-Election Day release date) arrives in theaters on October 17, and we were wondering how much you think it's gonna make? With one of the biggest presidential elections in years only a couple weeks away from that date, and with the entire world watching to see who we'll replace Dubya with, will all that chitter-chatter raise more or less interest in the Oliver Stone movie? Is this the kind of flick that will surprise everyone with a giant taking, or will it crash and burn? Sound off below ... and we'll revisit your answers in a couple months when
W rolls out.
Posted Jul 13th 2008 8:32PM by Eric D. Snider
Filed under: New Releases, Celebrities and Controversy, Politics, Celebrities Gone Wild!
When Josh Brolin takes a night off from playing a young George W. Bush to get arrested in a bar, the jokes practically write themselves. (Method acting, anyone?) That's what happened in the wee hours of Saturday morning in Shreveport, La., as
Brolin, co-star
Jeffrey Wright (who plays Colin Powell), and five crew members from Oliver Stone's biopic
W. were arrested at the Stray Cat bar and taken down to the big house.
The Associated Press's
account is sparse, so we turn to Shreveport's
KSLA News 12 for more details (and thanks to
Jeffrey Wells for the link). Seems it was closin' time at the ol' Stray Cat, and Brolin and his pals wouldn't leave, despite bein' asked twice, and they were bein' rowdy. So the bar staff called the police, who arrived just after 2 a.m., whereupon there was a bit of a scuffle, and a fellow named Eric Felland got arresting for remaining in the bar, public drunkenness, and resisting arrest. Brolin, Wright, and the other
W.-affiliated folks reportedly interfered with the arrest, so they got arrested for that misdemeanor.
The
Shreveport Times reports that Brolin posted a $334 bond and was free to go. Wright and the other four arrest-resisters had the same price on their heads. The guy who was being arrested in the first place, Felland, who is a lighting technician on the film, had a $752 bond. It's unclear from the early news reports how long it took everyone to get out of the clink, but one assumes they didn't have to fester in jail too long. I like what one of the commenters at
Hollywood Elsewhere said, that it would have been great if James Cromwell, who plays George Bush Sr., had had to come bail everyone out.
Continue reading The Cast of Oliver Stone's 'W.' Gets Arrested in a Louisiana Bar
Posted Jul 1st 2008 2:32PM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, Lionsgate Films, Michael Moore
If you read any part of that draft of
W., Oliver Stone's Bush biopic,
which hit the net a few months back, you might think it ludicrous for the film to be likened to Shakespeare. But Stone himself has done so, as part of
an L.A. Times set visit interview. Lumped in with a quote in which Stone also contrasts the project to the work of
Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning director's statement is in response to the film's level of seriousness: "W. isn't an overly serious movie, but it is a serious subject. It's a Shakespearean story. . . . I see it as the strange unfolding of American democracy as I have lived it."
The
Times piece, which reports from Shreveport, Louisiana, where Independence Bowl stadium fills in for the Texas Rangers' Arlington Stadium, is very filling for anyone with an appetite for more
W. updates. Included are a description of and dialogue from a scene between George W. Bush (
Josh Brolin) and George H.W. Bush (
James Cromwell), details on a "baseball-oriented fantasy" sequence, Brolin stating that he's not out to do a
SNL-style caricature and admitting his initial hesitance to take on the role, a general overview of the project's coming together, and, best of all, a picture (seen, cropped, above) of Brolin as the future Commander in Chief looking like he's just had the crap beaten out of him. Also a fact I'd somehow never known prior to reading the article: Stone was "briefly a Yale classmate of Bush."
Continue reading Oliver Stone Calls 'W.' Shakespearean
Posted Jun 27th 2008 6:32PM by Eric Kohn
Filed under: Casting, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Politics
When it comes to sifting through all actors responsible for portraying the most powerful man on the planet, there's no shortage of options.
John Travolta did a great Bill Clinton impersonation in
Primary Colors and
Timothy Bottoms delivered a near-perfect imitation of George W. Bush in both
D.C. 9/11: Time of Crisis and
That's My Bush! Neither one comes across as particularly flattering, so presidential nominee Barack Obama has chosen a safer bet: At a recent party in Los Angeles,
Obama revealed that he prefers
Jeff Bridges' conflicted commander-in-chief in
The Contender. Granted, he may have said this simply to keep his audience happy -- in this case,
Contender director
Rod Lurie, one of the attendees who was willing to plop down $28,000 for the event. "'I just plugged your movie," Obama told Lurie,
according to a report the director sent to
Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells.
Still, when you're under the kind of intense scrutiny that Obama currently endures, Bridges actually seems like a pretty safe choice. Choose
Anthony Hopkins in
Nixon and it sounds like you're endorsing the bad guy. Choose
Kevin Kline in
Dave and you come across as disingenuous. Choose
Peter Sellers in
Dr. Strangelove and somebody will call you incompetent. Bridges, on the other hand, plays a fierce leader bound to his moral convictions. Of course, Obama also expressed sympathy over Lurie's short-lived television show
Commander-in-Chief, which featured
Geena Davis as the first woman president. Perhaps it's no coincidence that he and Hillary have
publicly made amends.
Posted Jun 5th 2008 8:02AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Lionsgate Films, Politics, Posters
If anyone was still expecting Oliver Stone's
W to be a sympathetic, thoughtful treatment of a controversial figure a lá
Nixon, you can pretty much toss that out the window. The teaser poster for the rushed-to-production George W. Bush biopic -- a piece of artwork Lionsgate took with them to Cannes -- makes
Stone's attitude toward the man pretty clear. Check it out after the jump.
My question is this: does anyone seriously think that people are going to flock to the theater in the middle of election season lured by the promise of... Bushisms?
That's your marketing pitch? Bush supporters don't appreciate the jibes, and Democrats have already heard all the jokes.
Look, I don't want a movie that's kind to Bush, or even one that's "even-handed"; I just want one that's thoughtful. Of course it's possible that the poster doesn't match the tone of Stone's film; after all, the Lionsgate marketing department almost certainly had final say. Granted, too, this was a poster produced for Cannes, and may not be representative of the eventual American campaign. But everything I've heard about
W -- most notably
this -- indicates that the poster has it pretty much right. Bush is a frat boy, a bumbler, "the improbable president." No doubt. But is he anything else?
[
Continue reading A Teaser Poster for 'W'
Posted May 22nd 2008 10:31AM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Casting, Politics
Dum, dum, dum. The moment we've all been waiting for. While most of the cast is in place for Oliver Stone's upcoming biopic
W, from Dubya himself to Tony Blair, Condoleezza, and the rest, Dick Cheney has remained just out of reach -- a wild hunter, a political Wile E. Coyote.* But not anymore. Now that the film is a week into production, we've got our Cheney -- almost.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that
Richard Dreyfuss is in final negotiations to play Dick in the upcoming film, which is the last major role that needed to be filled. Playing Cheney is not quite the same as getting to play President Alphonse Simms in
Moon Over Parador, a task that pulled him out of the Public Theater in New York and threw him into a dictatorship, but I'll take it.
Dreyfuss is also a decent match to Cheney, although it's been a while since I've seen him without his signature facial hair. This is not, however, the first time he's taken on the world of Dubya on the big screen. In 2004 he played Chuck Raven in John Sayles'
Silver City -- a political film that might have been about the Pilager family, but was very obviously based on the Bushes.
*Originally intended to be "wily coyote," but misspelled, so I'm using the main animated dude instead.Posted May 13th 2008 2:32PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Casting, Politics
Bit by bit, we get closer to the soon-to-be-sped-through biopic on George W. Bush,
W -- remember, although it hasn't been completely cast, and is just
one day into production, it will hit theaters this October. We've got Josh Brolin
as Dubya, Elizabeth Banks
as Laura, Rob Corddry
as Ari Fleischer, James Cromwell as George Sr., Ellen Burstyn as Barbara, Thandie Newton as Condoleeza, Ioan Gruffudd as Tony Blair, and Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell.
And now,
Empire reports that
Scott Glenn is going to play former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It's a fair likeness, and not half as surprising as Brolin being Bush. It's also a fair casting move considering Glenn's previous work, from his CIA director in
The Bourne Ultimatum, to his Jack Crawford in
Silence of the Lambs, to his Lieutenant Richard M. Colby in
Apocalypse Now.
But really, even with potential script issues and questionable likenesses, I'm completely charmed by this cast and hoping that it won't be one of those huge ensemble stinkers. I'm not even particularly interested in more Dubya, but I can't resist a film that has both Burstyn and Wright.
But who in the hell is going to play Cheney?!
Posted May 9th 2008 1:32PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Casting, Deals, Lionsgate Films, Distribution, Politics
Now that you know what Josh Brolin's George W. Bush will
look like, you should know that you'll get to see him in action real soon -- probably sooner than you thought. The ever-courageous Lionsgate has
picked up Oliver Stone's
W, and plans to release it on October 17th. Of this year. That's 2008. Before the election. Notably, the movie hasn't even started shooting yet -- it goes into production on May 12th in Louisiana.
I never really thought the film would fail to find distribution, though early
buzz on the screenplay has been fairly toxic. I did think there was going to be a race between when
W would be finished and when Dubya would be finished -- that is, out of office. But apparently Stone is not messing around and plans to deliver the film in a few months, with Lionsgate hoping to capitalize on the furor that will surround the election.
Jeez -- maybe it's because I read too many blogs (or because I live in Pennsylvania, suddenly a battleground state), but it's barely May and I'm already
tired of the election. Is
W really how people will want to spend their leisure time in late October? I can't imagine, but I respect the folks at Lionsgate enough to think they know what they're doing. Incidentally: Dick Cheney remains uncast. Any suggestions?
Posted May 8th 2008 8:45AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Casting, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Images
The world thought one thing when
Oliver Stone cast
Josh Brolin as our Commander in Chief: "
Really? How is that going to work?" And yet, here comes our first look at
W. proving that it actually
does. It's creepy. Granted, it is still President Bush as filtered through the Handsome and Rugged Machine (TM), but it's not nearly as outlandish as I expected. The same goes for
Elizabeth Banks. The magic of hair and makeup. Let's just hand them the Oscar for this one.
Entertainment Weekly has a six-page spread on the new film; we've included another photo of Josh Brolin as George W. Bush after the jump.
No release date yet, but shooting begins in two weeks and I am beyond intrigued now. Stone should make this a new franchise. I vote Clive Owen as Vladimir Putin. What do you think? Does it work? Does this whole thing work?
Continue reading Wow! Josh Brolin Makes a Convincing George W. Bush!
Posted Apr 9th 2008 6:32PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Casting, Deals, RumorMonger, Newsstand, Politics
Oh Ari Fleischer -- the
David Cross of Press Secretaries. Wait a minute -- why didn't they get David Cross for this role? He'd be perfect. Anyway,
MTV tells us that
Rob Corddry (
The Daily Show, Semi-Pro ... and a bunch of other random comedies) has signed on to play former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in Oliver Stone's
W. Corddry joins a cast that continues to get larger by the minute, and includes Josh Brolin (George W. Bush), Elizabeth Banks (Laura Bush), James Cromwell (George Bush Sr.), Ellen Burstyn (Barbara Bush), Thandie Newton (Condi Rice), Ioan Gruffudd (Tony Blair) and 50 Cent (as Colin Powell).
Yes, I'm kidding about that last one.
Earlier today,
we clued you into a script review of
W currently circulating the internets. According to some, the film seems to be taking the Bush is a moronic alcoholic fratboy route, which, if you watch, well,
The Daily Show, is kinda old news. As Eugene put it, "Most people -- whether or not they accept it -- have already absorbed the meme that Bush is an arrogant, reckless, hard-drinking buffoon, and I'm not sure that this perception merits its own movie." I completely agree -- and I'd much rather have watched Stone return to Vietnam with
Pinkville than sit down for a feature-length version of a joke that's way past its prime.
Posted Apr 9th 2008 10:32AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Scripts, Politics
The script for Oliver Stone's
W -- a project we've been
discussing a lot around here lately -- apparently leaked to several news outlets this week, and
Slate has posted a delightful, albeit spoiler-heavy,
review. Now, the extent to which a George W. Bush biopic can be spoiled is debatable, and a lot could change from the October 15, 2007 draft (titled
Bush rather than
W) that Slate got its grubby paws on, but the review does give away a good number of specific scenes, lines and moments, so proceed with caution.
Slate's prevailing impression is that the screenplay is heavy on Bushisms ("Is our children learning?") and common perceptions that have become clichés (Bush as alcoholic fratboy). Indeed, some of the lines they quote sound like something that I, having done no research and possessing virtually no insight into the man, might come up with if asked out of the blue to write a movie about Bush's life. (On the decision to invade Iraq, for example: "I think it's time we stopped standing around with our dicks in our hands, and raised the stakes on ol' 'Husseny.'")
Continue reading Slate Posts Spoiler-Happy 'W' Script Review
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